My Grandfather had several. As did my Dad, uncles, and just about every man I knew. As a kid I noticed a pattern that the older guy’s collections seemed more refined. Those with more idle time on their hands had sorted theirs and even labeled them for easier recall.
I’m of course referring to the can (or jar) of mixed nuts, bolts, washers, screws, nails for which no self-respecting household was without. Any project involving adjustment or repair of a mechanical device from a loose kitchen knob to a noisy lawnmower to a rough idling car might inevitably need a transplant from “the can.”
These repositories of fasteners could be coffee cans (the most ironically named were those kept in an old coffee can named “Chock full o’ Nuts”, but could also be tobacco tins and on occasion even mayonnaise or baby food jars. They were always in reach of the main workbench surface and their well-worn appearance was testimony how were very often they were accessed.
As a kid, time was not something I was too concerned with. However, my dawdling would often exceed my Dad’s threshold of “enough” and trigger him to stomp up the driveway and with a flick of his hand officially dismiss me from the retrieval mission he’d sent me on just moments prior. He would “just get it himself” but only after demonstrating how simple the task was to find a matching lock washer and nut to replace the ones that had vibrated off the mower and become lost in the lawn.
Yesterday, when my solar powered Christmas lights refused to shine, I disassembled base to see if replacing the rechargeable battery would help. Of course, I dropped one of the tiny screws into the bushes. It was when I pulled down the “canonutsandbolts” (mine is an old “Half and Half” tobacco tin) and instinctively dumped it out onto a rag that I recalled I was reenacting a trick my grandfather had showed me some fifty years earlier. Rather than mix and poke around with my finger or dump everything onto the workbench, pouring the contents onto an old rag allowed one to see everything and best of all, save time by picking the rag up and pouring the contents back into the can!
A flood of other memories poured out of that jar including when my uncle showed me how to lay one screw on top of another to see if the threads matched. My Dad showed me the difference between a wood screw and a metal screw and the reason some heads were round and some flat. These men helped me discover and appreciate the beauty in the blending of design and purpose that could be found in a humble, rattly can of simultaneously rusty and oily fasteners.
I have showed this rag trick to my children and recently to my five-year-old granddaughter. Like I did teaching her about coins, I think I’ll dig out a variety of nuts, bolts, screws, and washers and teach her how and why they were designed by their maker to fit together. We’re made in God’s image so naturally we mirror our world with a blending of beauty and functional design. An appreciation of this is something I’d like to think I am passing on, as well as valuable skills to ease the burdens of everyday life.